Monday, March 3, 2008

The Mathematical Biology Group at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland (leader Dr. Otso Ovaskainen) is seeking outstanding, highly motivated candidates to join research projects at the interface between mathematics and ecology and evolutionary biology. Successful candidates may have their training either in mathematics or in biology, the main criteria being the potential to perform top-quality research. We anticipate hiring up to 4 postdoctoral researchers or Ph.D. students over the next 3 years. Research projects will be developed in conjunction with the interests of the successful candidates, focused on the following areas:

The roles of space and stochasticity in population dynamicsMetacommunity dynamics of wood-decaying fungiAnimal movement in heterogeneous environmentsBayesian approaches in evolutionary quantitative geneticsThe PhD student positions are available for 4 years. The postdoc positions are for 1 year, with the possibility of a 2-year extension.

The Mathematical Biology group is part of the Metapopulation Research Group (leader prof. Ilkka Hanski), which is a Centre of Excellence in Research supported by the Academy of Finland. We offer an international research environment with excellent possibilities to cooperate with experts in mathematics, statistics, population biology, and evolutionary ecology. Salary and social benefits according to the University of Helsinki Salary system, around 2,300 Euro /month for PhD students and 3,100 Euro /month for post docs (the latter negotiable).

Applications including a short CV (max 3 pages), list of publications, a one page motivational letter, and the e-mail addresses of two researchers willing to write a letter of reference should be sent to otso.ovaskainen@helsinki.fi with cc to tuuli.ojala@helsinki.fi; write either “postdoc position” or ” PhD student position” on the subject line. For more details on the research projects and on the application procedure, see www.helsinki.fi/science/metapop/MBG/positions/index.htm